"Bitcoin Creator" Satoshi Nakamoto, Were They Really Two People?

▲ Satoshi Nakamoto statue/Source: Bitcoin Archive X account ©

A new documentary claim that Satoshi Nakamoto, the creator of Bitcoin, was not one person but two cypherpunks, is once again attracting market attention.

According to DL News on April 24 (local time), the documentary 'Finding Satoshi,' based on over four years of research and numerous interviews, suggested that Hal Finney and Len Sassaman might be the individuals who created Bitcoin (BTC). However, there is no decisive evidence; it is a claim that connects data analysis and circumstantial evidence.

The documentary analyzed six main candidates: Adam Back, Nick Szabo, Hal Finney, Len Sassaman, Paul Le Roux, and Wei Dai. Alyssa Blackburn, a data scientist at Baylor College of Medicine, explained that an analysis of Satoshi's posting times, mining activities, and periods of silence showed that only Finney and Sassaman met the conditions.

The work identified Finney as a key figure in the code. He was the person who received the first Bitcoin from Satoshi in January 2009 and is the developer who created Reusable Proof of Work (RPOW), a precursor to Bitcoin. The documentary claims that there was a gap of about two months in Finney's work records between the white paper's release in October 2008 and the creation of the Genesis Block in January 2009, and that he may have been involved in Bitcoin's development during this period.

However, the theory of Finney as the sole creator has a temporal contradiction. Jameson Lopp, co-founder of Casa, presented an instance where Satoshi was active in email at a time when Finney was running a marathon. The documentary suggests that Sassaman explains this gap. The logic is that if Finney handled code development and Sassaman managed communications under Satoshi's name, the temporal conflict would be resolved.

Sassaman was described as a person skilled in anonymity, privacy, and white paper writing. He was a Ph.D. student mentored by David Chaum and was reportedly proficient in 'stylometric anonymization,' changing writing styles to hide identity. Sassaman's acquaintances and family confirmed that he was in contact with Finney in 2008, and Finney's wife, Fran Finney, after seeing the documentary's content, said, "I don't think he wrote the white paper, but he might have helped."

Ultimately, the documentary could not confirm Satoshi's identity. However, it presented a strong narrative that Bitcoin might not have been the result of a single genius, but rather a collaboration between two developers who dreamed of a better digital financial system even amidst late-life illness and personal suffering. DL News assessed that while there is no decisive cryptographic evidence, it is one of the most compelling claims among the Satoshi investigations to date.

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